I never got to see the late Paul Bley perform, but several times in the late 70s, I did get to see his by-then ex-wife, Carla Bley, who had previously composed Bley's signature Ida Lupino.
With their narrative and almost cinematic compositions, Carla Bley's records still sound more like rock records to me than jazz. An album like 1979's Musique Mechanique was not a big leap for fans of prog-rock bands like early Genesis and Yes, or for those accustomed to the big-band arrangements of Frank Zappa. Her compositions from this period were fairly simple rhythmically, often based on 4/4 marches - no complicated jazz drumming to confound the audience - and her soloists may not have conjured the nuanced emotions of the finest jazz, but the solos were loud and brash and suitably epic. In other words, just the thing that rock audiences ate up.
When Carla Bley and Her Very Large Band played Boston's Paradise Theater, a rock club, the audience treated them like rock stars, enthusiastically calling out the names of soloists ("Windo!") and dancing in their seats (this was when rock clubs still followed the cabaret model of seating the audience at tables with a two-drink minimum).
Bley's most famous composition is probably the more adventurous and avant-garde Escalator Over The Hill, an operatic magnum opus that sprawls over three bizarre discs that she composed with the Canadian drummer Paul Haines. Another rock connection: Paul Haines' daughter, Emily, would later go on and become the songwriter and lead singer for the Toronto band Metric.
One of my favorite albums from the '70s, if not of all time, diminished somewhat from the vinyl version by the audio compression in this format, but still an effective recording. This is what was playing in my head during my university years - and what my college roommates kept telling me to turn down late at night. However, this music holds up much better now, some 40 years later, than the laid-back, radio-format soft rock to which they were listening.
In those heady university years, between listening to Don Cherry, Brian Eno, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Jon Hassel, and schlepping LP copies of No Pussyfooting, Another Green World, In C, Music for 18 Musicians, and Mu, Part I from apartment to apartment, I felt like I had tapped into the music of the future, and it kind of turns out that I was right, at least with regard to my future.
Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, nor a fan of David Crosby in particular, but it bears noting that in 1970, Crosby quietly, very quietly, released a masterpiece solo recording, If Only I Could Remember My Name, that took the laid-back Laurel Canyon vibe and harmonies and made an album so brilliantly gentle and relaxed that it almost borders on ambience.
What your humble narrator was likely to be listening to in 1971 (above) and how he appeared (below). The afro'ed gentleman approaching on the bicycle was his friend, M.
If for no other reason that I find myself nostalgic today, a taste of Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention, circa 1970.
As long as I'm at it, some of my friends from back in the day:
And finally, it seems somehow appropriate to filter today's Supreme Court decision establishing marriage equality for all Americans through the lens of my current nostalgia by posting some vintage Bowie.
If you know that line from this post's title, then I know something about you: you're most likely of the same generation as I, and back in the day you listened to sonically adventurous music like Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. And if you did listen to the Captain, especially his definitive Trout Mask Replica, you probably never forgot that titular line.
Generally speaking, I tend to look forward with regard to music, listening to what's new and what's happening now, but sometimes it's rewarding to look back and recall the foundations of what came before, especially for an old man like me (the old fart at play), who's lived through rock music from the very beginning. When Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica came out in 1969, it was so experimental and so far ahead of its time, it was considered unlistenable by most people, and at the time I approached it more like a comedy or a party album for all of its weirdness, but in retrospect, after three decades of punk and lo-fi and a half century of rock experimentalism, the album's delta blues and dadaist influences are more readily apparent and the music now sounds simultaneously retrogressive and futuristic, at least to my ears.
Anyhow, after listening this morning to Trout Mask Replica and other classic Beefheart albums like Safe As Milk and Mirror Man, I found these televised performances by Beefheart and the Magic Band on YouTube. The songs from the German television appearance are Steal Softly Thru The Snow from Trout Mask Replica, Click Clack (starting at 3:26) from The Spotlight Kid, Golden Birdies (7:06) from Clear Spot, and I'm Gonna Booglarize You, Baby (9:03) from The Spotlight Kid. In addition to the Captain on vocals, sax, and harmonica, the musicians are ex-Zappa sidemen Zoot Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad) on slide guitar, Rockette Morton (Mark Boston) on rhythm guitar and bass, Art Tripp on drums, Winged Eel Fingerling (Elliot Ingber) on guitar, and on bass, Roy Estrada (who is deservedly now serving a long prison sentence for a third conviction for sexual molestation of a minor).
The camerawork is horrible on the German video (how high do you think that cameraman was at the time?), but it's still an amazing document of the band, and if you ever thought that their music was random and haphazard and not carefully written and rehearsed, listen to how closely they capture the precise timing and notes from their albums in the live performance.
It's amazing that the set was even televised in Germany - it would never have happened here (it can't happen here). But what's even more mind-blowing is that back in 1966, Captain Beefheart was actually featured on American television on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. According to AllMusic, "In their original incarnation, the Magic Band were a blues-rock outfit who became staples of the teen dance circuit; they quickly signed to A&M Records, where the success of the single Diddy Wah Diddy earned them the opportunity to record a full-length album. Comprised of Van Vliet compositions like Frying Pan, Electricity, and Zig Zag Wanderer, label president Jerry Moss rejected the completed record as "too negative," and a crushed Beefheart went into seclusion." Although the Captain later recut the songs for the 1967 album Safe as Milk, this video is a rare document of the band's earliest days.
Just to give you a little perspective on the times, the Top 10 songs at the time of this June 18, 1966 broadcast were 1) Strangers In The Night by Frank Sinatra, 2) Paperback Writer by The Beatles, 3) Paint It, Black by The Rolling Stones, 4) I Am A Rock by Simon & Garfunkel, 5) Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind? by The Lovin' Spoonful 6) Cool Jerk by The Capitols, 7) Younger Girl by The Critters, 8) Opus 17 (Don't Worry 'Bout Me) by The 4 Seasons, 9) Red Rubber Ball by The Cyrkle, and 10) Ain't Too Proud To Beg by The Temptations. I would turn 12 years old later that summer.
And we take a break from the way-back nostalgia ("favorite songs from 1979 through 1981") to engage in a little bit of more-recent nostalgia with this recap of last May's Shaky Knees festival.
The lean, bearded, Fiat Spider-driving, cowboy-hat-wearing, 27-year-old incarnation of myself had left the girlfriend and their little apartment in Boston behind to set out for a new life in Atlanta, Georgia. It was 1981. He was young. Wordy Rappinghood may have been the fun party song of the year, but this is the music he primarily remembers listening to in 1981, on cassette, generally while driving around in that little, unreliable car.
Robert Fripp & The League of Gentlemen - The incredible Sara Lee on bass, while Fripp lays down all of those polyrhythms that the punk rockers of the time were hearing in their heads but didn't have the chops to play.
After No Pussyfooting (1973) and Music For Airports (1978), in 1981's My Life In the Bush of Ghosts, Eno redefined for him for at least the third time what music was capable of doing, and exponentially broadened his horizons. He owes Eno so much for how he thinks about and experiences music to this day.
For those of you keeping score at home, I expect this nostalgia kick to end pretty soon and regular posting to resume shortly.
